The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Manfred Belheim]

Not according to their moral code, no.

 

[Berzerker]

You're the one arguing human rights come from and can be denied by the state

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well not come from the state. Come from society at large, but need to be recognised and protected by the state to be of any use. But why are you reiterating that?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Human (natural) rights dont come from society, civil rights do. Your right to life didn't come from me or society, it came from your individuality as defined by existence.

First of all, the second sentence does not make any sense, because I'm not sure what "your individuality as defined by existence" is supposed to mean. But even putting that aside... you say animal rights come from "society" but human rights come from "existence"... Why? What is it about humans especially that they get to have their rights come from "existence" rather than "society" as with the other animals? Why don't animal rights come from "existence" too?

When I said people have no moral claims against animals I meant it isn't immoral for animals to kill us. I cannot accuse the lion chewing on my leg of violating my right to live.

This is just factually incorrect. It is pretty standard practice to euthanize a dog or lion or any zoo or domestic animal that attacks and maims and/or kills a human.

Morality and rights involve human interaction.

That's just another way of saying that "morality and rights" come from "society".

That was his rebuttal to the pro-life label used by people opposed to abortion.

It was more like a critique of the whole idea that human life is somehow special or sacred, which is exactly the argument you are making here when you say the human rights to life and self-defense come from "existence", but animal rights don't. And his conclusion... that this/your position is all just made up self-serving BS by humans, is what I am suggesting in response.
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[Farm Boy]

You don't always destroy an animal that is dangerous to humans because you can't always make an animal reliably safe without being cruel for cruelty's sake. They act the way they act, and species differ. The baseline assumptions are actually fundamentally different. You're right though, it is a hell of an act of domination to breed a herd of something, make it cozy and fat and safe, and then profit and subsist from the life and death. It's even more of an act of domination to shape its communal nature to be better adapted to this arrangement.

 

[El_Machinae]

When I was younger, I was trying to figure out how animals and humans differed in a moral sense. My answer ended up involving sapience.

It then means that I described it as immoral to kill Sapient animals. I would rather have too large of a tent than too small. But you also don't want to have it much larger than necessary

 

[Farm Boy]

Especially when you consider we don't give nearly enough moral gravity to plants. Not rights in any meaningful sense, that's ridiculous, but in their intrinsic value. We probably give, if anything, a bit too much to companion animals.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Did Jews lined up at the gas chambers have the right to escape, even when that required killing guards? Yes... Does that hold true for a murderer being executed? No, they stripped away their victim's right to life. When society executes the murderer they do so partly on behalf of the victim, their moral authority to kill the would-be murderer in self defense transfers to society in the form of after-the-fact punishment.

No. This does not follow for numerous reasons. First of all, you've dubbed the right to life and self defense as "natural" rights which exist superior to any laws and come from "existence" rather than the laws/rules/consensus of "society". So if they exist independent of law/society how can they be stripped by society? The only way a right could be legally/morally destroyed by society is if it was created by society in the first place.

Also, the "right to self defense" comes from the specific fact that you are protecting your own life from imminent danger doesn't it? So once you're dead, your life is no longer in danger, so there isn't any more "right to self defense" for you or anyone else to to invoke or your behalf. Suggesting that the right to defend oneself from imminent harm can somehow survive the lack of any danger of imminent harm , and even the death of the possessor of the right is a complete non-sequitur... doubly so is the suggestion that this danger of imminent harm can somehow "transfer" to someone else months later.

Finally, if the "moral authority to kill the would-be murderer in self defense" can "transfer" into a right to kill the murderer "in the form of after-the-fact punishment", then why can't the victim's neighbor, or relative, or any citizen-at-large just go mete out the "after-the-fact punishment" by killing the murderer themselves? We're talking about a "natural" right here, which according to you, supersedes any societal rules or laws. If the victim had a "natural" right which has now been "transferred", doesn't it remain a "natural" right? So why would anyone have to wait for "society" to exercise it? See it just makes no sense to talk about rights existing above or outside of societal creation.

If killing to eat is universal, then it might identify a right for people to do the same. It just isn't universal for people to do that to each other.

OK, but what if it was "universal"? What if we were living in some kind of environment, like a post apocalyptic world, for example, where food sources were so limited, that cannibalism was common, widespread practice? Would it then become a "natural" right? If yes, then that wouldn't that seem to suggest that "natural" rights are actually quite flexible and circumstance-dependent, rather than hard-and-fast principles that have higher moral authority than law. On the other hand, if not, then "universality" can't be the basis of something being a natural right can it?

Also, just note that we've gone as far down this path to actually start suggesting that there might be a natural right for people to kill-and-eat each other.

 

[Farm Boy]

Also, just note that we've gone as far down this path to actually start suggesting that there might be a natural right for people to kill-and-eat each other.

Backwards sommer. We're far enough down our path that that particular location seems remote and far away. Go us!

 

[Sommerswerd]

Backwards sommer. We're far enough down our path that that particular location seems remote and far away. Go us!

Tough luck for the cows tho, eh?

 

[El_Machinae]

We execute people with the death penalty as a variant of self-defense. I think it's morally consistent. I'm only against it on practical grounds. It doesn't work sufficiently well to use it.

By analogy, universal bomb vests would protect against violent assault. But I don't think they'd effectively reduce unwanted deaths.

 

[El_Machinae]

Especially when you consider we don't give nearly enough moral gravity to plants. Not rights in any meaningful sense, that's ridiculous, but in their intrinsic value. We probably give, if anything, a bit too much to companion animals.

Maybe. Sentient organisms can suffer. We've a duty to reduce suffering and increase satisfaction. Maybe too much to pets due to opportunity cost (doubling the quality of life for a poor person compounds in a way that rescuing a cat won't), but I think our major failing is how we treated farmed animals. From lab rats to chickens.

But people want cheap meat and slow medical progress.

 

[Farm Boy]

Tough luck for the cows tho, eh?

Dunno! Unhappy cows are crappy cows. They generally seem pretty happy in good operations. I'd feel worse for factory chickens, truth be told, but they're dumber and people don't sympathize with them as much. Plus chickens are enormous buttholes. Cows are too, but the aggression is more concentrated in the bulls and those get castrated/culled down unlike hens.

El, I'm still more worried about setaside and conservation(which you phrase with the lingo of the day as biodiversity) than I am the chickens. The lab grown meat is a red herring too. Massive disease risk once the immune systems are rendered artificial and the individual, isolatable, cullable, bulwarks are eliminated.

 

[Lexicus]

I think it's morally consistent.

It's morally consistent to kill people who kill people because killing people is wrong? Whatever you're smoking to make that look morally consistent. I want some

 

[Broken_Erika]

Especially when you consider we don't give nearly enough moral gravity to plants. Not rights in any meaningful sense, that's ridiculous, but in their intrinsic value. We probably give, if anything, a bit too much to companion animals.

So we need more companion plants?
.....
Don't mess with my companion Asparagus. I need it for emotional support.

 

[Farm Boy]

Mine blesses me with stinky pee.

 

[El_Machinae]

El, I'm still more worried about setaside and conservation(which you phrase with the lingo of the day as biodiversity) than I am the chickens. The lab grown meat is a red herring too. Massive disease risk once the immune systems are rendered artificial and the individual, isolatable, cullable, bulwarks are eliminated.

I'm concerned about biodiversity too (ps: thanks for the new words). But a LOT of that framing is in terms of 'self-defense' or concern about future people. Animal cruelty has consequences at the individual level.

Hurting a sentient organism for more pleasure is wrong, imo

 

[Farm Boy]

We can have industrial streamlines which concentrate and tighten state control(effectiveness debatable) over things like slaughter operations and regulated high capacity buildings, or we can incentivize to skew profitability/labor/resource allocation and disperse operations so they're smaller on more space* to target the entire lifecycle rather than only the efficiency and the end of it, and that introduces more variability. I generally favor the latter, but authoritarian impulse operates against. As does capitalist impulse that wants cheap critical infrastructure without communal effective-maintenance-level funding of critical infrastructure.

*We've done it before, like when we empowered the absolute everloving poo out of the Commerce Clause ascendant.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, luckily, I have the capacity to make decisions at the margin. But yeah, the capitalist wants cheap inputs and doesn't care about animal suffering. We've seen this story many times. Inevitably, they required a change in laws.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We execute people with the death penalty as a variant of self-defense. I think it's morally consistent.

No. It isn't consistent. Self defense hinges on the imminence of the threat. Otherwise, if the right survives the imminence, then you'd have a right to go hunt down and kill the guy who "threatened" you with a gun a week prior, out of "self defense".